As I sit here in a condo in Ludlow, VT staring out at the cold expanse - too cold to actually ski, at -12 degrees - I realize it's been almost an entire year since I've posted a blog entry. Last year brought no fishing trips, but this year is guaranteed to - Phil bought all of us airfare to Punta Gorda for an early-summer redfish and snook trip. Last year also brought no backpacking trips, but my New Year's resolution is to spend more time outside. Christmas brought me some spending money in the form of gift cards to Sierra Trading Post, so I utilized them well and for $4 out-of-pocket got myself a Deuter ACT Lite 65+10. This pack, considerably larger than my 40 liter North Face pack, allows me to spend more than one night in the woods if we decide to do a more substantial trip, and also allows me to be the family sherpa as Brooke and I take the kids into the wilderness for an overnight adventure. Hunter turns 8 this summer, so I think him and I will have our first father-and-son overnight (and again with Max once he's older), and I know Bill and Mark are trying to plan a Great Smoky Mountain National Park 3-night excursion that I'll be desperate to join. I've also resigned myself to using my Redington fly reel until it no longer works, so a new fly reel is out of the question for the foreseeable future. My current gear collection across the spectrum is pretty much set, unless of course Brooke grants me permission for hobby #6. Golf has made a triumphant return to my life in the past couple of years, as well. Once a low-single-digit handicap, life got in the way and my amount of time on the course greatly diminished. But thanks to my good friend, Matt, who has been a member of the renowned Pleasant Valley Country Club (former PGA Tour stop), my game has come back to me and it has once again controlled a large portion of my free time. This year, for the first time since 2002, I will be custom fit for a new set of clubs in order to take my game to the next level. My goal is to get back to a sub-5 handicap, and play in some local amateur tournaments. Once the fitting is complete and my new clubs are ordered, I'll make a golf section of this site to list my current What's In The Bag, and to keep track of tournament results, etc. Well, that's all for now, folks. Here's to a happy and healthy 2018.

So as I mentioned in my last post, I had a business trip to Salt Lake City in November for a homicide conference. I stayed at the Sheraton downtown, and even though the conference was your typical 9-5 business conference (speakers, powerpoints, smaller groups, etc.), the hours before & after the conference really made it a fun trip. I ventured through downtown each morning looking for a killer breakfast spot, and I sure as hell struck gold in that department. The coffee shop at the Little America hotel absolutely blew my doors off - in the words of my mother, it was "outstanding!" SLC has no shortage of great bars and restaurants and I managed to hit a couple great ones for dinner and drinks each night, namely Squatters Pub, The Green Pig, and Red Rock Brewing. My last day in town gave me an entire morning and afternoon of exploration, and with that came a few hours at my Graceland: the Land Cruiser Heritage museum. I also managed to hit the Cotopaxi flagship store and buy some Christmas presents for Brooke and Shea at Tiffany before heading to the airport and making my way back east.

In other news, I had another unsuccessful hunting season. There are more details in the hunting section, but at this point I'm willing to just mow one down with my Jeep and call it a day.

Mark, Bill, Byronn and myself will be planning our 2017 hike(s) in the coming weeks, and I'm looking forward to our annual guys fly fishing trip. Will we return to Punta Gorda? Will stay local and cast into Cape Cod Bay? Who knows. Either way, it's a blast. Speaking of fishing, I've been spewing for years that "this is the year" That I upgrade my reel. But should I? I managed those two decent stripers well enough on my cheap-o Redington.

Well, that's it for now - unless something else pops into my head while I sit here OD'ing on caffeine at Panera.

So in my line of work, business travel is a rarity. So when the opportunity arose to sign up for a conference in Salt Lake City, UT, I jumped at it. For the next few days I'll be learning the ins & outs of homicide investigation and prosecution, and should return a better lawyer than when I left. Aside from that, not much is new. I still haven't gotten around to writing about our Labor Day trips to Acadia, nor have I updated other sections of the site. Maybe during some down time this week I'll open up the ol' Chromebook and get some work done. If anyone has any can't-miss spots for food & drink in Salt Lake City, let me know at Anthony@huntershikes.com - thanks in advance!

So Brooke and I just recently got back from an incredibly fun couple of days in Nashville, so that write-up is coming soon. In summation, we had more fun in Nashville than we've had in years. I'm headed out this weekend for our annual guys fishing trip; this year we're returning to the Cape for some striper fishing. We have two camping trips in the books this year, too, so those reports will come soon. I'm not even sure anyone reads this, except me when I'm bored at work, but I'm planning a sick day {{cough cough}} in the coming weeks to plant my ass at Panera and finish almost everything on my new HP Chromebook. No new gear to report, yet, but the year is young. I was close to pulling the trigger on a new fly reel, but I'd really prefer to bust my Redington this weekend fighting a trophy striper or blue and then have a legitimate reason to splurge and get a nice new Sage 2210. Brooke and I have been focusing on golf this summer, so other activities have taken a hit due to that unexpected, but enjoyable, hit to the wallet. We have a guys hiking trip planned for mid-August in Vermont (up and over Killington), so hopefully it goes as planned and doesn't end up like last year's travesty. Reports to come!

After seeing that my last blog post was from Mother's Day of last year (almost an entire year ago), I figured something had to be done. It's been far too long since I devoted any time and energy into this site, and most of that can be attributed not the fact that we have three kids under the age of six, but that we've been pouring all of our free time into Mad Men every night after work once the kids go to bed.

Make sure to check out my friend Kristin's new travel blog/site called Wanderlust Americana where she hilariously details her and her boyfriend's travels throughout the land (and overseas). Her wit can only be rivaled by mine, but she's a far better writer (and traveler, for that matter).

2015 didn't bear any guys fishing trips, but 2016 is shaping up to have something in store for us. We've opted to stay local, so maybe stripers on the Cape or the Salmon River in upstate New York in the fall.

2015 also kind of porked us on backpacking trips, too. While the story has yet to be written (same rings true for 2014's adventures), I can sum it up here in about two sentences: we tried to hike Camel's Hump as part of an overnight loop, but bit off more than we could chew (after a large, late breakfast) and had to retreat to our cars when it became clear as day that our hike just wasn't going to pan out. Oh, and Mark broke his fibula. We'll be aiming to do at least one overnight trip this year with the usual cast of characters, and maybe even get to use things such as tents, sleeping bags, stoves, etc.

Not much new gear to report for 2016, but my birthday's coming up...I got new trekking poles for Christmas (thanks to my sister-in-law), so those should help my balky knees considerably. I'd like to get a new fly fishing reel that I can use & abuse in saltwater, too. Any other suggestions can be sent to Brooke@huntershikes.com

Probably the most important piece of gear for 2016 will be the addition of a Chromebook. I'm going to pick one up in the near future for the sole purpose of running this site. It's very difficult to work 8-9 hours in an office setting and then come home and strap myself to another desk and another computer. A Chromebook will allow me to sit my fat, lazy ass on the couch, drink beer, stream Netflix, and work on the site all at the same time. I love living in the future.

After a delicious and filling brunch on Mother's Day morning, the only thing Brooke wanted to do was take a nice, easy hike with the kids (and then stop for ice cream after). She hopped online and found a nice 2 mile stroll through the woods of Northborough on the Cold Harbor Trail. It was about 20 minutes from home and lo and behold, we stopped for ice cream after. It was the perfect ending to a perfect Mother's Day, for the perfect mother.

Hunter and I finally go out (while Max & Shea napped at home, and Brooke caught up on some DVR) on this glorious 40* day. We're days from April, and 40* has been borderline tropical after this absolutely abysmal winter. We did the 3/4 mile Old Purgatory Loop which is still close to a foot of packed snow, but it was pretty easy walking. It'll be weeks before the trails are down to dirt, and weeks beyond that until we're out of mud season.

So here I sit, the father of three. Brooke and I are proud to announce the newest member of our family, our daughter Shea. She's all of five days old right now, and is upstairs sleeping while Mom also gets some rest. Now with two little boys and a baby girl, Brooke and I have a complete set (collect all three!). My spidey-sense tells me that she is going to enjoy the outdoors just as much as her brothers. Hunter and Max are over the moon excited to have a baby sister, and I literally just checked to see if REI has cute little pink hiking outfits. No such luck, but she'll still manage to be the cutest kid on the trails in the coming years. In other, not so exciting news:

I recently discovered (after foolishly being mistaken) that my Redington Surge fly reel does not have a sealed drag. With that being almost a necessity for fishing in saltwater, it certainly more than justifies shopping for a new reel. The made-in-the-USA (with a sealed drag!) Lamson Konic II is the early front-runner to go on my trust TFO 9-weight.

We sold our camper this past fall and will be scouring Craigslist for a new one this spring. We had many great memories in our old one, but it's time to move on and get something with a little more room, heat, more storage, and frankly, in better condition.

I regret to inform anyone who will ever read this that I enter 2015 completely geared-up for hiking season. I know, I know, I could always buy something (JetBoil?), but I finally have a collection of gear I like and that works, so what's the need? Paging Mark T....

Hunting season wrapped up in disappointing fashion. See the season wrap-up for complete details.

Lastly, I'll be heading to Florida in March to do some fishing with Phil. Brooke and the kids will be down at their condo vacationing, so Phil recommended I fly down later in the week so him and I could venture off to the Keys or Everglades City to go after some Bonefish and Snook.

I swear, I thought I had post more recently than April but it appears not. Anyways, there is again no excuse for such shoddy web maintenance over the past 8 months. There have been numerous hikes that have occurred, the big Belize fishing trip, and our weekend in Chicago, none of which has been chronicled. About the only thing I've done is add some trail camera pics (some doozies, I must say). With some anticipated time off from work approaching due to the holiday season, I sincerely hope I can get on here and get up to speed because before I know it, 2015's hikes will be happening and I still won't have authored 2014's. Such is life. Oh well, Baby Melia #3 is due in the next month, so that of course won't help with freeing up time, but then again I'll be home from work for two weeks so I guess we'll see what happens. #runonsentence. Alrighty then, God speed and here's to a productive and nature-filled 2015.

2014 is looking to be one of the busiest, most action-packed summers in a long, long time. As for hikes, I have three planned: the Adirondacks with Bill, Mark, Byronn, and Thilo in June, the northern Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont with Brooke in July, and hopefully one more guys trip in August to New Hampshire's White Mountains. Brooke and I then went and found three more open weekends for taking the camper somewhere with the boys. We're hitting Acadia National Park over Memorial Day weekend, our first time there since 2011. We're also planning another trip to Glen Ellis campground on the Saco River in Glen, NH in June, and will return there a second time this year in October. On top of all of that, I'm still planning on doing five days in Belize fly fishing with my father-in-law Phil, and my two brothers-in-law, Marc and Ben. I can't begin to put into words how I excited I am for each of these trips, especially my hike with Brooke and returning to Acadia with Hunter and Max in the camper. 2014's looking awfully good awfully early!

I've been researching lower priced down sleeping bags for going on two seasons now, for the two main reasons that people upgrade to down bags: less weight, and smaller compressed size. My EMS synthetic bag, while warm, just took up far too much room in my 40 liter pack, and there was no way in hell I was ditching my pack. Long story short, I found a Sierra Designs Solar Down 20* (EN-rated) sleeping bag at a local retailer last night. It had all of the same pertinent specs of all of the other down bags I had been researching that retailed for between $150 and $200 (550-fill duck down, 21oz. of fill, 2lb. 9oz. weight, 15"x7" compressed), and Sierra Designs is known for being a premier manufacturer of sleeping bags and other outdoor equipment. The bag had no price tag, and it was apparent it had been sitting on the shelf for quite some time, so I brought it to the register to inquire. The kind sir at the register scanned the bar code and the clearance price popped up at $69.97. Sold! I brought it home, bragged to Brooke about my deal, threw it in the dryer on air fluff with a tennis ball to fluff the down, and spent the remainder of the night drunk with elation about my newest gear purchase.

Bill, Mark, Byronn, and I had dinner at Blackie's in North Smithfield, RI again to plan our summer's hiking trips. We have two group trips planned, one in June to the Adirondacks, and one in August to the Whites in New Hampshire. Everyone has their own side trips planned (Mark with his brother, Bill with his son, me with Brooke), so our dance card is going to be pretty full this summer.

Hit Town & Country in Gorham, NH for our annual family trip to the great white north. Dad and I did 80 smooth miles, while a few cousins shredded Sunday River's slopes. A full report with pictures will be posted in the coming days. On our way home, as we always do, we hit the L.L. Bean outlet store, but in Conway this time. I came {{this close}} to buying their Microlight FS1 solo backpacking tent on sale for $129. It would have cut close to four pounds off my total pack weight, but it just wasn't in the cards. I totally regret it, though, so don't be shocked if I take a stroll north and pick one up before our trips this summer.

So Bill, Mark, and I, along with Max, hit the REI garage sale at their Cranston store yesterday morning. It was my first garage sale, and I was pretty impressed. I scored an REI down vest for all of $30, but Bill walked out the hero that day. Nothing like a brand new Big Agnes Copper Spur UL2 tent and SteriPen water sterilizer to put a smile on his face. With his tent he cuts weight in half, from over 6lbs. with his old EMS tent to 3lbs. 1oz. with the new Big Agnes. Also, the threat of diarrhea is now greatly minimized with his purchase of the SteriPen. I came close to pulling the trigger on a Black Diamond Spot headlamp, but with Princeton Tec's lifetime warranty, there's really no excuse to not get my Quad fixed.

Heading up to Rangeley, ME this weekend to do some serious riding with Dad and a few other guys. The trail system up there is other-worldly, so plenty of pics and full report will be posted some time this spring.

Despite not having much snow, the cold weather we've had this winter has allowed for some lake riding. I took Hunter out this past Saturday and racked up a whopping four miles tooling around in front of my parent's house. He eventually dozed off while we were riding, as evidenced by his slack body and arms hanging to the side. He's slowly evolving into a huge snowmobile fan, thank goodness, and I hope Max follows in stride!

So here I sit, in the midst of manually transferring every bit of content from the old Hunter's Hikes to the new Hunter's Hikes, this time hosted by Weebly. Hopefully everything transitions smoothly, and if it does I'll be ecstatic. Weebly's website builder, for those of us who aren't fluent in code, is just world's above Google's. Granted, Google is considerably cheaper, but good God this is so much easier, intuitive, and visually appealing.

I have no excuses for my incredibly poor upkeep of this website over the last 6+ months...granted, Brooke and I just bought a new house, and completely renovated it, but come on. Anywho, until I get the time to sit down and A) finish Lye Brook, B) finish our latest camping trip, and C) figure out why Google is being a pain in the ass with the Picasa Web Albums, go check out my hunting gear page for three new pieces of awesomeness, a Badlands pack, a Havalon knife, and a sweet little knit cap.

So my Mom bought a little Kodak personal scanner on a daily deal website a few months ago, and I just recently unboxed it in an attempt at getting as many cool, old photos on my computer. Among those pictures are a few real winners. Below are two pics of my striper fishing off of Martha'a Vineyard in 2006, and under the Day Hikes section you will find a short slideshow from my hike up (and down) Mt. Washington in 1996. I'll also be adding a section under Snowmobiling of all the pictures I could find from 1992-1996 when my Dad and I (and Uncle and cousin...) went almost every weekend from Christmas through April. Enjoy!

So Brooke and I took Hunter & Max (now over a month old) to Purgatory for a picnic and some hiking/goofing off today (had the day off, paternity leave day #9 out of 10). After our picnic we strolled the half-mile Spring House trail and ended up at the playground, but not before climbing and descending one of Purgatory's most recognized landmarks - the steep rock (I don't know its official name). Below is a 90 second video of Hunter climbing about as well as a three year old can.

Central Massachusetts just received the 3rd largest dumping of white stuff in recorded history, 30" (behind 1997's 34.5" and 1992's 31"), so it's been quite an action-packed weekend. It tooks three hours of snowblowing and another half-hour of plowing (thanks, Dad!) to clean out my 50' driveway, but once it was clear we headed down to my parents to take Hunter sledding and grab my Polaris off of the trailer. Well, as I should have known, 30" is far too much powder for a standard-length track sled (121") and I had all I could do to not get stuck even on the flattest of terrain. Once I packed down a nice little trail for Hunter, Jack, and Amelia to sled on we grabbed the plastic saucer and made a few runs. Hunter mysteriously loved the first run we went on, but was quick to tell dad "all done" when asked if he wanted to go again. Below is a pic of my buried Subaru.

So yes, it's been a while. Once camping season was over it was time to hunt, then once hunting was over it was time to work on the snowmobile and get it ready for (hopefully) a full season of riding. I did exactly what I didn't want to do, and that was ignore Lye Brook for all this time and take my sweet ass time finishing it. Luckily, the misery that accompanied that trip is still freshly ingrained in my mind. On top on finishing Lye Brook (sometime this week?) a couple of other edits have taken place, such as adding some new hunting & snowmobiling gear and adding some new slideshows. Our trusty Sony VAIO laptop died about a month ago so we had to rely on my Asus Transformer TF300 tablet to connect to the outside world, but have no fear - Best Buy credit card is here. Just a few nights ago I set up our new HP desktop with 20" HD monitor. It's amazing how "cheap" technology today is still amazingly powerful for the average consumer. Needless to say, I have high hopes for getting back into the website-editing swing of things. I hope to get more than one overnight hike in this year, and so far snowmobile season has proved plentiful. Fingers crossed!

Brooke, Hunter and I took our new Jayco pop-up camper down to the Worcester Surfcasting Club campground on the Cape Cod Canal this past weekend for our first official camping trip. My parents were down visiting my Aunt & Uncle, so my dad, who is as excited about the camper as we are, got to partake in the festivities. We hooked the camper up to my dad's Tundra early Friday afternoon and were crossing the Bourne Bridge at 4:30pm that evening. Within an hour the camper was fully set up and the seven of us were enjoying drinks at our camp site. After a few rounds of bevvies we packed up and headed to dinner, right down the road at Gert's. Fried seafood was on our minds, as we were on Cape Cod afterall, and after dinner Brooke, Hunter and I retreated for our first night in the camper. The three of us squeezed into the king size bed and proceeded to get nine hours of deep sleep, waking intermittently to the pitter-patter of rain on the hard roof of the camper. In the morning, while my dad and Hunter ran amok around the camp site, I cooked sausage and scrambled eggs over the stove while enjoying a hot cup of Starbucks Sumatra brewed in the stove-top percolator. This was quite possibly one of the five or ten best breakfasts I've ever had. Our weekend ended prematurely as the rain moved in and the radar on my phone showed no end in sight. We decided we'd be heading back down this coming weekend, so we didn't feel guilty leaving Saturday afternoon and heading back home. It was a great 24 hours, and with a few more weekends planned this fall, Brooke and I couldn't be more excited.

Author

I'm just a guy who loves to hike, fish, hunt, camp, and snowmobile, preferably with my wife Brooke and our three kids, Hunter, Max & Shea. I play the part of a lawyer during the week and try to get outside and get dirty on the weekends.